Floral Embroidered Top DIY

We are abosolutely in love with this embroidery DIY that Kelli made for you today! If you've never tried hand embroidery, this is a great project to get started on!First thing's first. Gather your Supplies: embroidery thread, embroidery needle, washable marking pen, embroidery hoop and a basic tee.Step 1. Sketch out a design that works with the silhouette of your tee. Or you can download mine: Download Design-left chest + Download Design-right chest. Print out each side on an 8.5×11 sheet of paper. Size may need to be adjusted according to the size of your top. The top two flowers closest to the center are meant to overlap, so you know your design is aligned correctly.Step 2. Trace your design onto your garment. You can either use carbon paper or a light box for this. Because I have a light box at home, I decided to go this route. You could also try securing your t-shirt and design on to a window on a bright day. Your design should already be printed out on paper. Place the paper inside your t-shirt, and line up your design exactly where you want the embroidery to sit. Place your top on a light box (or a window) and you will be able to see the entire design through the front side of your top. Using your washable marking pen, trace the design onto the front side of the fabric. (don't worry, the ink will wash away with it's first rinse!)Step 3. Attach your embroidery hoop before you begin stitching. Place the inner ring under the front side of your top where you want to begin stitching. Loosen the tension on the outer ring and place that on top of the inner ring, so your fabric is stretched tightly between them. Tighten the adjustment screw, and you are ready to get started!Step 4. Using an embroidery needle with a large eye, thread your needle with your embroidery thread. You can separate your some of your embroidery floss strands to make your embroidery thinner and more delicate. But I chose to leave them whole, because I like the chunkier look. To start, I did a simple backstitch for the vines. For the fill on the leaves and flowers, I just stitched as I went along, with no exact method. But I found that making all of my stitches move in the same direction, made the design look much better. Keep working your way through your design, swapping out embroidery colors as you come to them. Every time you are finished with a flower or a particular section of color, make sure to create a knot on the under side before moving on. This will keep it from unraveling in the wash.Step 5. Once you are totally finished with the embroidery, gently rinse your top in cold water to remove the ink from the marking pen. Throw it in the dryer or hang dry overnight. Voila!

This is gorgeous!! I love hand embroidery, but I don’t always have the time or patience for it, so I started using a basic sewing machine to add pretty stitching to t-shirts and other things. It’s fun and fast once you learn how. Not to replace this kind of amazing hand stitching–but a nice alternative! I even co-authored a book about it: http://ourimprovdiary.wordpress.com/improv-sewing-our-book/

Embroidery designs by Dropcloth are really cool!! The designer is amazing. I have completed her sampler and learned how to embroider (from knowing NOTHING)!! You can buy her stuff on etsy and maybe on her website too.. not that I have it in my brain right now. Google “Dropcloth embroidery” and I am sure it will come up!

I love this idea! I work in a craft store so I walk by these supplies daily and have never thought about making an embroidered top. I have many tops that could use a colorful unique touch… I need to try this!

This is really cute! Just thought I’d add a few extra tips that people might find helpful:

– If you tack some scrap fabric along the neckline (so that it extends out) it will be easier to mount the top in the hoop.

– It’s a good idea to check that your thread is colourfast before stitching, if you’re using a water-soluble marker. Just get a white tissue, wet a small piece of your thread and leave it on the tissue overnight to dry. If it doesn’t leave a mark on the tissue you should be fine!

– It can be handy to put some interfacing behind the design when you’re stitching, so it’s a bit more sturdy. You can just trim it really close to the stitching once you’re done.

Hope you don’t mind me adding these hints – I work with embroidery every day, so I like being able to help out!

This is awesome, I’m in love with this embroidery. I did a little hand embroidery on some pieces of my patchwork blanket I made some time ago and I still love it every time I see or touch it. So, this T-shirt embroidery would make a perfect project after finishing all my recent projects. Thanks for sharing!

OH – how cool! Now, if we could get a pattern for the aztecy pattern than Isabel Marant used on her jeans last season! OMG – that would be so FAB!
XOXO
-Daisy Nguyen from PS BANANAS fashion blog:http://psbananas.com

this is so lovely! reminds me of this greek shirt my mother brought back for my baby girl. I’d wish she had bought the same for me! Now, i can do it myself…although i wonder if i will be patient enough!

I’ve done some hand embroidering… This is really gorgeous.
As you continue practicing your embroidery skills, you may want to experiment with using less thread – you can separate the individual threads in the embroidery floss so instead of using all six you use two or three or four.. It can add nice dimension to designs to use different thicknesses 🙂

Your finished piece and design are lovely – I would just like to note that, especially for a beginner, it would be far, far easier to hand embroider a t-shirt (or any knit/non-woven – i.e. “stretchy” material) if you ironed some stabilizer onto the back first (or the front if it is a dark material and you want to print the pattern onto the stabilizer). It is sooo much easier! Hand embroidery is traditionally done on woven material (like cotton fabric for quilting, or even-weave linen fabric if you are doing cross-stitch or anything you’d want to frame). Stabilizer keeps the knit fabric from pulling all over the place and tangling up your stitches.

I learned this tip from the Queen of contemporary hand-embroidery, Jenny Hart. She sells stabilizer on her Sublime Stitching site, or you can buy it elsewhere (I use Sulky “Totally Stable” Iron-On, Tear-Away Stabilizer… I think I got that recommendation from Jenny before she started selling stabilizer in her own packaging on her site… I don’t know if she is selling re-packaged Sulky or something else).

Another thing I do sometimes, especially if I want to add a design to the front of a onsie for a baby gift or any kind of centered design that will go on the front of a t-shirt is to embroider it onto a plain piece of woven cotton (the kind you can get from any shop that sells fabric for quilting) and then use interfacing (the thin kind that is basically just a sheet of washable adhesive) to iron it onto the front of the onesie or t-shirt and then go around the edges (in other, more correct terms, applique it on). This sandwiches the stitches (and any knots, bumps, messiness, mistakes, etc.) in between the front of the embroidery and the garment, so you can’t see the back of your embroidery, your stitches will be glued down and less likely to come undone, and won’t be scratchy on baby or grown-up skin.

Sulky also makes pens that you can use to trace your design and turn it into an iron-on. So if you draw a design or motif that you really like, you can iron it on (it will be backwards, of course… there are tutorials on this and everything else I just wrote online, go googling) and stitch it up wherever you want. Hand embroidery is really fun and you can do all sorts of cool things with just a few basic stitches. Then you can get deeper into it and learn (look up) hundreds of stitches that have developed over the centuries. My favorite online source for seeing how to do stitches is the video library at Mary Corbett’s Needle n Thread http://www.needlenthread.com/ . My favorite book is Mary Thomas’ “Dictionary of Embroidery Stitches” http://www.amazon.com/Mary-Thomass-Dictionary-Embroidery-Stitches/dp/1570761183 . And of course, for the coolest contemporary embroidery patterns, Jenny Hart’s http://www.sublimestitching.com !

Again, this is a really cute shirt! It should inspire a lot of people to try stitching. 😀